Snoop Dogg Takes on Trump

On March 14, Snoop Dogg released the video for his new song, “Lavender (Nightfall Remix).” The song is a cover of a BADBADNOTGOOD song featuring Kaytranada. In the newly released video, the whole world is full of clowns, yet still beset by the police brutality and violence that we see so much of today. Near the end of the video, Snoop points a toy gun at the head of a familiar looking orange-faced clown, and he pulls the trigger on the confetti gun.

The next day Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, denounced the “Lavender” video during an interview with the gossip outlet TMZ. Cohen stated, “It’s absolutely disgraceful. Snoop owes the President an apology. There’s nothing funny about an assassination attempt on a president.” The President later followed up with a tweet, stating, “Can you imagine what the outcry would be if @SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President Obama? Jail time!”

The director of the video, Jesse Wellens, shot back on Twitter declaring, “It’s just a prank, bro.” Snoop himself also spoke about the video, saying, “The whole world is clownin’ around, and [Jesse’s] concept is so right on point with the art direction and the reality, because if you really look at some of these m***********s, they are clowns,” Snoop said. “When I be putting s*** out, I don’t ever expect or look for a reaction,” he stated. “I just put it out because I feel like it’s something that’s missing. Any time I drop something, I’m trying to fill in a void,” he says. “I feel like it’s a lot of people making cool records, having fun, partying, but nobody’s dealing with the real issue with this f****** clown as president, and the s*** that we dealing with out here, so I wanted to take time out to push pause on a party record and make one of these records for the time being.”

Many hip-hop artists have spoken out in Snoop’s defense, including Common, TI, and Bow Wow. Most of them specifically supported Snoop’s choice to express himself artistically and without fear. Several artists had somewhat derogatory words for the President, suggesting that he find something better to do with his time.